Writer & Unabashed Dog Lover

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While it’s true that the author reimagines the original examen of St. Ignatius of Loyola in a fresh way, after immersing in this book and its devotional exercises for prayer and meditation, I think you will find that it reignites your faith and prayer life.

Tricia Goyer has one of those personal stories that inspires from the pulpit and in print, and is ironically, the exact kind of story that I’d avoid reading, let alone purchasing. Attempting a just and fair description of a lifetime of pain and brokenness might cheapen the redemptive story of a life radically transformed by God.

Welcome to Part 5 of The Complete Journals of Lucy Maud Montgomery, The PEI Years, 1889-1900. For an overview of the project, please click here. I’ve been trudging along, trying to make time to finish reading Volume 1 of this 2-volume set. It is worth mentioning at this point that the break in the two volumes is a by-product of the editors, not of L. M. Montgomery herself. The entirety of the text runs from September 21st, 1889 – April 1th, 1897 and this is considered the first volume of the author’s handwritten journal. The second volume runs from April 2th, 1897 – February 7, 1910. For the purposes of this blog series, it should be understood that the text referenced below (The Complete Journals of Lucy Maud Montgomery, The PEI Years, 1889-1900) begins on September 21st, 1889 and ends on December 22nd, 1900. As it’s been a few weeks since posting, I intend on trying to conclude this present volume in today’s post, so onward! 1897-1900 1897 was a cruel year for Maud as she struggled being a schoolteacher and …

Welcome to Part 4 of The Complete Journals of Lucy Maud Montgomery, The PEI Years, 1889-1900. For an overview of the project, please click here. 1895-1896 Montgomery begins the year cozily snug with Tennyson and doughnuts, and gets interrupted by a boy, Lou, which she laments isn’t quite as good as a fireside curled up with Tennyson and doughnuts! I adore Montgomery and hope that we would’ve been friends. As Montgomery continues her schoolmarm years (during 1895 and 1896), her publication credits begin to pile up. In March 1895, she receives notice that a poem, “On the Gulf Shore” has been accepted by the Toronto Ladies Journal and later, a story “A Baking of Gingersnaps”, published by the same in July 1895; in February 1896, a short story, “Our Charivari” was sold to the Philadelphia magazine, Golden Days; an article commissioned by the editor of the Halifax Herald, entitled “A Girl’s Place at Dalhousie College”; and in March 1896, a poem called “Fisher Lassies” was published by The Youth’s Companion. Golden Days went on to publish …

Welcome to Part 3 of The Complete Journals of Lucy Maud Montgomery, The PEI Years, 1889-1900. For an overview of the project, please click here. 1893-1894 Maud is eighteen at the start of 1893 and home for the summer in Cavendish where Nate is rumoured to be coming home for a visit. Speculation flies that he is here to see Maud, but shall anything come of it? Maud continued to have stories published in her college’s paper, founded by Tal MacMillan (one of her schoolmates) and some of the other college boys, and in The Ladies’ World (1886), a New York magazine. Amongst her college years, Maud doesn’t grow out of her antics — leading on a nosy landlord to believe a young man is calling for her friend instead of for her, going out for walks/rides with multiple young men over the course of the year and caring not a serious whit for any, and even passing notes during an exam! Amongst the ephemera are several photos of Lover’s Lane, Maud’s bedroom, the college where …

Welcome to Part 2 of The Complete Journals of Lucy Maud Montgomery, The PEI Years, 1889-1900. For an overview of the project, please click here. In last week’s post, I promised that this one would detail the “culmination of a summer romance” and I shall endeavor not to disappoint! 1891 In her budding sexuality, Maud is confused by Mr. Mustard’s evening calls in which he sits and talks of pre-destination and the desire to be a minister, and judging by the entries, bores her to tears. Maud’s innocent attempts to ward off “that detestable Mustard’s” (65) visits are not to be missed, some of the comic highlights of the year’s entries. As much as Maud attempts to shake off the unwelcome suitor, she embraces the flirtatious adventures with William ‘Will’ Pritchard (Laura Pritchard’s brother) and though it is obvious that she likes him, he likes her a good deal better than she does him. Although there are some mentions of Nate being away to college, he does not factor in Maud’s life at this point as a …

Welcome to Part 1 of The Complete Journals of Lucy Maud Montgomery, The PEI Years, 1889-1900. For an overview of the project, please click here. Maud’s journal begins at the young age of 14 (a few months’ shy of 15) with the beginning of a new diary, one that she’s determined will be of substance and more than just a documentation of the weather of the day. She will go on to recount her adventures and include relevant photographs of the people and places she encounters. 1889 In 1889, Lucy “Maud” Montgomery lived in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, a small village of fishermen and farmers and their families, with her maternal grandparents, the Macneills. Maud’s own mother had died of tuberculosis when Maud was 21 months old, and her father lives in Saskatchewan with his new wife. Having never been to Cavendish myself, I try to visualize the town from Montgomery’s descriptive writing, which reminds me of life in Avonlea, from the woods and pastures, the seashore and the magnificent skies, from stormy to sunsets. What struck me the …